Stone Guards -> Easier on 25m.
Gara Jal -> Easier on 25m.
Will of the Emperor -> Easier on 25m (before Ring of Frost nerf which required 6 level 90 mages; Good luck with that in 10m!).

With five dead, we were 30 seconds off of enrage and with the final Spirit King still at full health. Tell me we didn't need those five people for that encounter alive.

5 people dead is 20% of your raid team. A 10m wouldn't have killed it either with 2 DPS dead. You also had 3 people already ressed, so (lacking the context I assume) 8 people failed.

Garalon we had only one person dead and hit enrage.

Garalon Normal pre-nerf was a gear check, and still is, even on 10m. We only raided twice a week and first day killed it, world 150 kill on it. This was into enrage, with most wipes in enrage!

This guild will likely kill these two encounters on 10-man because, in fact, they require less personal responsibilities and not more.

Here's a trick a guild on my realm managed to do for 3 patches (and idiots fell for it every time): We're recruiting, going 25m! Then they hit a tough spot like Spine and they go 10m again. But here's the twist: their main raiders all got gear from the 25m runs, and they kicked out the worst ones. This makes 10m easier in 2 ways: more/better gear, and better players. Trick sounds familiar?

You talk about Paragon. Paragon couldn't find enough Finnish players because many people quit WoW.

Now, I don't know about any of you, but if something is clearly top to bottom easier, from logistical and executable standpoints, then why is something that is harder on all fronts giving equal reward? If you play a game with multiple difficulty settings, do you expect the same pat on the back for a job well done from the game's design team for accepting, and accomplishing, greater challenge? No. So why is it that this is an acceptable system?

You haven't proven at all, all you did was an anecdotal experience. If you played Gara Jal 10m H pre-nerf without being overgeared you'd know it was a huge RNGfest and if you had certain classes which is more of a problem in 10m then it was nearly impossible. It is much easier to heal it on 25m.

If there were no advantages running 25m people everyone would switch to 10m, but that isn't happening because there are advantages running 25m. We've discussed these throughout the thread. If you believe 25m is always easier than 10m and you prefer the according to youmore difficult format then either live with that, or ask Blizzard to nerf 25m.

---------- Post added 2013-02-07 at 07:46 PM ----------

Originally Posted by gamingmuscle

Same Wiki article.

Heck you random.org even explains that computer RNGs are pseudo random.

I know what PRNG is. And I also know that it doesn't mean "Matoshi already got the debuff last wipe, so lets skip them this try." PRNG is meant to emulate random closely. The only difference is that it uses its own random data to generate new, to save CPU power.

Originally Posted by phyx

I am not sure if you are troll baiting or just being serious.

If you think someone is trolling you should report them. Calling someone a troll isn't allowed on these forums. You're entirely free to use the ignore function if you prefer.

---------- Post added 2013-02-07 at 07:50 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Martoshi

Let me try to put this in simple terms for you: I don't like to micromanage, however, I can micromanage. Micromanaging provides faster progress because you can prevent wipes and fix issues for "weaker" players. It's another form of leadership which happens to be possible in 10 mans but not in 25 mans, and just another issue that means you can progress faster and easier in 10 mans.

You can microamanage in 25m, but not alone. You need to delegate that. In in 10m you need to communicate (as part of delegation) as well. If you want to be a dictator however you'll be better off in 10m because playing 10 sockpuppets are easier to manage than 25m. That however does not mean you cannot microamanage 25m: you just need about 2 more persons to help you.

---------- Post added 2013-02-07 at 07:58 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Martoshi

And you think the RNG used in WoW is a true RNG like random.org? If you're going to act so smug, you really should know what you're talking about.

Yeah why, you got some documented proof they use /dev/urandom instead of /dev/random? Or when it detects the player is Martoshi it threats them as a special snowflake? Give me a break. Yes, random is random. If you have 10 players who can get a debuff and nobody is excluded then statistical analysis will prove a roughly 10% average chance the player gets the debuff, and in 25m it is average 4%. But it doesn't work like "poor Martoshi got the debuff twice last week, so Martoshi won't get it this week." Which is also why all anecdotal evidence based on RNG has to be taken with a grain of salt. Like mister "can't get my bow for 12 weeks" a few pages back.

lola, this is somewhat off topic obviously, but Stone Guard 25 is basically Halfus heroic. Stone Guard 10 is Halfus normal. Both are easy, but you'd be fooling yourself to think that 10-man is harder considering you're guaranteed to remove one mechanic every week. As far as Will goes, the RoF usage simply proves that Will 25 is harder. They're not nerfing spells for 10-man use, now are they (well, maybe Discipline priest, but that's another story entirely). I will not argue on Gara'jal. It is definitely more challenging on 10-man.

I don't know how you judge difficulty, but I'm guessing it's simply based off of your clear "10-man only" biases and not on actual logic. I won't state that some fights aren't harder on 10-man, they are. Usually the "gear checks" (ala Garalon). However, there are nine encounters that require spacing for a mechanic and situational awareness, minimum. Those nine are definitely more challenging on 25-man. As long as encounters continue to be designed in that manner (which they need to be, to be honest, in order to provide challenge to raiders in today's gaming world, and I am not complaining about that), then 25's will, more often than not, be more difficult overall.

To answer Injun, my story was what just happened yesterday. Of those 15, none are currently raiding. So, yes, you are currently down 15 raiders in the community, and I would not at all be surprised if some of them a. quit raiding or b. quit the game entirely (as stated, even I'm beginning to contemplate that decision, but this is not the time or place for such a discussion).

To answer the poster that I cannot recall the name of in regards to the "guild strategy", I have to wonder if you may be right on your assessment. I have seen other guilds do this in the past, as well. Which, that being the case, then doesn't that simply prove yet again that 25's are more complex logistically and mechanically and prove that they need increased support in some fashion to be deemed a viable option to the masses?

As to people who continue to use the words "force people to do 25's", no. That's not what we want as 25-man raiders. We want people to look at both options and decide what is more important to them. Right now, they don't have to. 10-man gains all of the benefits of 25's with none of the drawbacks. How is that even a choice?

lola, this is somewhat off topic obviously, but Stone Guard 25 is basically Halfus heroic. Stone Guard 10 is Halfus normal. Both are easy, but you'd be fooling yourself to think that 10-man is harder considering you're guaranteed to remove one mechanic every week. As far as Will goes, the RoF usage simply proves that Will 25 is harder. They're not nerfing spells for 10-man use, now are they (well, maybe Discipline priest, but that's another story entirely). I will not argue on Gara'jal. It is definitely more challenging on 10-man.

I don't know how you judge difficulty, but I'm guessing it's simply based off of your clear "10-man only" biases and not on actual logic. I won't state that some fights aren't harder on 10-man, they are. Usually the "gear checks" (ala Garalon). However, there are nine encounters that require spacing for a mechanic and situational awareness, minimum. Those nine are definitely more challenging on 25-man. As long as encounters continue to be designed in that manner (which they need to be, to be honest, in order to provide challenge to raiders in today's gaming world, and I am not complaining about that), then 25's will, more often than not, be more difficult overall.

To answer Injun, my story was what just happened yesterday. Of those 15, none are currently raiding. So, yes, you are currently down 15 raiders in the community, and I would not at all be surprised if some of them a. quit raiding or b. quit the game entirely (as stated, even I'm beginning to contemplate that decision, but this is not the time or place for such a discussion).

To answer the poster that I cannot recall the name of in regards to the "guild strategy", I have to wonder if you may be right on your assessment. I have seen other guilds do this in the past, as well. Which, that being the case, then doesn't that simply prove yet again that 25's are more complex logistically and mechanically and prove that they need increased support in some fashion to be deemed a viable option to the masses?

As to people who continue to use the words "force people to do 25's", no. That's not what we want as 25-man raiders. We want people to look at both options and decide what is more important to them. Right now, they don't have to. 10-man gains all of the benefits of 25's with none of the drawbacks. How is that even a choice?

I don't know how you judge difficulty, but I'm guessing it's simply based off of your clear "10-man only" biases and not on actual logic.

You have hit the nail on the head here when it comes to Lola, if it doesnt match up with his specific experience in game then it isnt real.
He lives in some fantasy land where he thinks that all 12 million peoples experience with the game is the same as his. I spent 3 pages trying to get him to understand that his perception and premise of how things are isnt the only idea that is real... I failed and for my trouble was called a liar and cheat...

Goodluck trying to open his eyes to a reality that is not based on his very narrow minded view.

To answer Injun, my story was what just happened yesterday. Of those 15, none are currently raiding. So, yes, you are currently down 15 raiders in the community, and I would not at all be surprised if some of them a. quit raiding or b. quit the game entirely (as stated, even I'm beginning to contemplate that decision, but this is not the time or place for such a discussion).

Doubt that's typical, and not really important to the point I was making.

Most raiders have moved comfortably from 25's to 10's because it's the path of least resistance - that's why this thread exists, after all. Some want them to move uncomfortably back to 25's from 10's. It's a big thing to justify, given the average player just wants his loot with the least effort possible. Adding effort doesn't seem to serve that desire.

Doubt that's typical, and not really important to the point I was making.

Most raiders have moved comfortably from 25's to 10's because it's the path of least resistance - that's why this thread exists, after all. Some want them to move uncomfortably back to 25's from 10's. It's a big thing to justify, given the average player just wants his loot with the least effort possible. Adding effort doesn't seem to serve that desire.

Unfortunatly having seen a lot of 25 man guilds dying on my own server i can say that it is typical, that a lot of the raiders just stop raiding normal/heroic and a lot also stop playing at all. The community they where in died and they decided to move on. Which from a real life perspective is for the best.

But heck when the total normal/heroic raiding population hits 300k maybe blizz will just kill of 10 and 25, and the only thing left standing will be LFR. Heck LFR is free beer, maybe it will just be better when all raiding guilds just die out.

the more i think about this problem the more I come back to just scrap dual sizes and go to a single size raid (15man please)

This has been brought up several times and in an ideal world, I would 100% totally agree with you. It still may happen someday but it will require a long period of preparation for it to happen. You don't just ask every raiding guild in the world to essentially destroy themselves unless you have an excellent reason. I'm not sure that an imbalance between 10/25 is enough of a reason.

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Sturgeon's Law states that 90% of everything is crap. When posting try and be in the 10% once in a while. It makes it better for everyone.

This has been brought up several times and in an ideal world, I would 100% totally agree with you. It still may happen someday but it will require a long period of preparation for it to happen. You don't just ask every raiding guild in the world to essentially destroy themselves unless you have an excellent reason. I'm not sure that an imbalance between 10/25 is enough of a reason.

If it was imbalance only m8, while raiding was thriving i would be with you on this one.
But look at the numbers of people raiding reaching a limit down as we speak, they have never been that low since the time of TBC regarding end game tier.

Also regarding 10 mans, thew upsize is not anything dramatic. Hell we re talking for an extra dungeon group. Blizzard is making it sound like it is a similar feat with climbing mount everest.

Lastly if a lot of people didnt genuinely like the idea, it wouldnt come up again and again and again. Blizzard turned down the idea 4 times by now officially. Still people are coming back with it.
I agree with you that in order to implement such a change you need to give people an adgustement period. Ideally it should be placed right after clearing final tier of an expansion on the anouncement list for the next one. Me personally i would be delighted if they were to anounce that we re going to 15 man tomorrow and from the current tier already. Pitty that raiding lost another expansion after Cataclysm failure because blizzard was not bold enough to propose something fresh and different.

Only further decline there will be out of more 10vs25 and i honestly hope next expansion wont be too late for raiding as now it is too late for 25s.

I agree with you that in order to implement such a change you need to give people an adgustement period. Ideally it should be placed right after clearing final tier of an expansion on the anouncement list for the next one.

Well, once they actually decide, the sooner the better. I actually think that guilds and raiders aren't quite so fragile as everyone believes or that even that I've implied but something like six-to-twelve months to say "This will happen and you should be ready for it and start thinking about your plans" will go a long way toward making what would be a very difficult thing a bit more palatable. Then for the most part guilds could just let the natural forces of people coming and going allow them to downsize if necessary or recruit with time to plan. A 15-man raid in the final patch before a new expansion--not trivial but not earth-shattering in difficulty or importance--wouldn't be a terrible idea either.

Given circumstances like that it might work but no one should be kidding anyone that it wouldn't be a difficult thing, cause a lot of grief, etc. The fact is that 15-man raids would be more work to do than 10's. Not as much as 25s of course but more nonetheless. There's no guarantee that betting everything on a 15-man raid size would work out which is why I said earlier that they need a damn good reason to do it. The current situation, which might be amenable to tweaks here and there and gradual pushes, may not be serious enough to warrant such a decision.

If they do it, they should do it clean though and not provide all 3 sizes as a transition. Just do the thing and get past it if that's what they think they need to do.

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Sturgeon's Law states that 90% of everything is crap. When posting try and be in the 10% once in a while. It makes it better for everyone.

This has been brought up several times and in an ideal world, I would 100% totally agree with you. It still may happen someday but it will require a long period of preparation for it to happen. You don't just ask every raiding guild in the world to essentially destroy themselves unless you have an excellent reason. I'm not sure that an imbalance between 10/25 is enough of a reason.

You're being a bit dramatic. In TBC every guild had to upsize from 10 to 25 during progress. Guilds come an go all the time, it's not like the current 10 mans have long histories behind them like many of the 25 man guilds did that Blizzard had no problem killing.

While standardizing on one size is an improvement, I'm not sure it will fix WoW. Nor am I sure if Blizzard is really interested in fixing WoW rather than just milking it with minimal effort and risk until Titan.

In an ideal world every raid size would get their own raids, essentially taking the TBC model and tweaking it to allow "parallel" progress for both 10 and 25 man guilds in different raid instances. But honestly, the game is too old, Blizzard is not what they used to be, and the playerbase has already gotten used to the farmville style WoW to go back to more meaningful raiding experience.

Well, once they actually decide, the sooner the better. I actually think that guilds and raiders aren't quite so fragile as everyone believes or that even that I've implied but something like six-to-twelve months to say "This will happen and you should be ready for it and start thinking about your plans" will go a long way toward making what would be a very difficult thing a bit more palatable. Then for the most part guilds could just let the natural forces of people coming and going allow them to downsize if necessary or recruit with time to plan. A 15-man raid in the final patch before a new expansion--not trivial but not earth-shattering in difficulty or importance--wouldn't be a terrible idea either.

Given circumstances like that it might work but no one should be kidding anyone that it wouldn't be a difficult thing, cause a lot of grief, etc. The fact is that 15-man raids would be more work to do than 10's. Not as much as 25s of course but more nonetheless. There's no guarantee that betting everything on a 15-man raid size would work out which is why I said earlier that they need a damn good reason to do it. The current situation, which might be amenable to tweaks here and there and gradual pushes, may not be serious enough to warrant such a decision.

If they do it, they should do it clean though and not provide all 3 sizes as a transition. Just do the thing and get past it if that's what they think they need to do.

I liked the bolded part.
I happen to believe very much into few things about 10 man as a rule of thumbs.

1) They need to be more in order to accomodate the same raiders doing prior to the chanfes 25. They arent. As a result the raiders are excluded even if the want to raid.
a) You need new officers. No more than one per team is needed, but old 25 ppl officers will stick together even if a downsize happens.
b) You need 12% of the playerbase to swap to tanks.
2) They are not hard enough to create that make the creators of newly formed 10 mans not to be attached to them and motivated to make it work.

Really 10 man is limiting, with wow terms when it comes to raiding.

On the other hand 25s now are even more of a hassle than they used to be even.
In the current model it is a feat to survive even!
To hope for changes while 10 man raiding is dominating wow is the least i can say futile, unless Blizzard didnt learn from their stupid mistake with Cataclysm Changes and wants to repeat it.

One look to the glorious top 40 guilds in ICC 25.

Top 4 stopped raiding or stopped being 25.
Together with them, are not around for various reasons (as 25 to say the least)
no 8,9,12,16,17,19,23,24,25,27,28,29,32,34,38,39,40

So with 21/40 world top guilds folded or downsized what one can claim anymore?...

15 people is an excellent size for many reasons that have been brought up to this site many times.

1) Can secure level playing field to progression oriented players.
2) Can be accessible enough for the more casual players while,
3) Require enough involvement from the officers side to "connect" with their guild and not to let it rott at the first obstacle
4) Freeing resources from balancing with oportunity to funnel more resources into quality
5) Raid design with one size in mind. Need to bring back the old burried Karazhan Memory designed for 10? SSC for 25 maybe?
6) Make up for a less restrictive set up, with the potential all classes to be represented
7) Make loot issues for 10 man with RnG--->dis less apparent
8) Feel more epic without being chaotic
9) Brings people together, rather than discriminating them into "10" and "25" ppl raiders.
10) And my favorite, puts MMO Champ "Raids and Dungeons" forum out of business, since half of the threads here are 10vs25 :P (joking)

In the end of the day only that blizzard statement "feels like a punishment to all" remains. A statement as faulse as their previous ones regarding the current model when they applied the changes. History has proven who was right and who was wrong.

...the playerbase has already gotten used to the farmville style WoW to go back to more meaningful raiding experience.

The Heroic level raiding experience in MoP is anything but Farmville. Saying stuff like this calls your entire thesis into question.

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Sturgeon's Law states that 90% of everything is crap. When posting try and be in the 10% once in a while. It makes it better for everyone.

This has been brought up several times and in an ideal world, I would 100% totally agree with you. It still may happen someday but it will require a long period of preparation for it to happen. You don't just ask every raiding guild in the world to essentially destroy themselves unless you have an excellent reason. I'm not sure that an imbalance between 10/25 is enough of a reason.

Personally, I think it should be 20-man. The average 25-man guild I've ever been in has, at most, maybe five "dead weight" raiders on their roster. It would be a perfect merge for 10-man guilds as they simply a. merge two 10-man groups or b. merge two 10-man guilds and 25-mans it would be perfect because they drop their five worst and it's not a major middle finger.

If you think 25m raids are cool and want to go through the extra effort and carry 15 more bads then go for it. Nobody is stopping you. If you can't, suck it up buttercup. You don't deserve extra rewards, the reward is doing something you like and not having the feature taken away for you even though it's inferior in terms of sheer practicality (easier to find 10 non-mouthbreathers, easier to get mats ready, easier to keep everyone on the same page etc). People shouldn't have to do 25m raids because they give something cool...they don't want to do them. If they did, they'd do them anyway because they're fun for them.

That is what most people are missing the point of. You aren't special for doing 25m raids. You shouldn't get anything extra. Nobody should be forced to do something they don't want just because YOU want something extra for nothing.

That is what most people are missing the point of. You aren't special for doing 25m raids. You shouldn't get anything extra. Nobody should be forced to do something they don't want just because YOU want something extra for nothing.

Thats what i don't like with many that come into support of the 10 man. You don't focus on the problem but on the people. Your concern is for the others not to have something more than you do and your eternal syndrom is for what you do not to be considered inferior.
Why do you think that this aproach even matters?
25s are dying for sure, but you can see that raiding is also diminishing as an hole.
Everything has to fall appart till you people change the "you aint special" tune?

Well, once they actually decide, the sooner the better. I actually think that guilds and raiders aren't quite so fragile as everyone believes or that even that I've implied but something like six-to-twelve months to say "This will happen and you should be ready for it and start thinking about your plans" will go a long way toward making what would be a very difficult thing a bit more palatable. Then for the most part guilds could just let the natural forces of people coming and going allow them to downsize if necessary or recruit with time to plan.

They can plan....but its going to be problematic no matter how its done. 10/25 man raiding is going to be going on in some form until the next Xpac launches, but what you would also need would be a quiet period - such as a long period when raiding naturally dies down. The year for DS/LK would have been a good time - raiding dies down, and people and guilds start thinking about the next XPac.

A 15-man raid in the final patch before a new expansion--not trivial but not earth-shattering in difficulty or importance--wouldn't be a terrible idea either.

I think that'd be a terrible idea. What you'd want would be some sort of pick up raid, something players could just try out but without pushing it into the status of a mainstream. What you'd get are the various guilds complaining about having to recruit or sit so many raiders.

Given circumstances like that it might work but no one should be kidding anyone that it wouldn't be a difficult thing, cause a lot of grief, etc. The fact is that 15-man raids would be more work to do than 10's. Not as much as 25s of course but more nonetheless. There's no guarantee that betting everything on a 15-man raid size would work out which is why I said earlier that they need a damn good reason to do it. The current situation, which might be amenable to tweaks here and there and gradual pushes, may not be serious enough to warrant such a decision.

I'd go further....the complete destruction of serious hardcore 25 man raiding might not be serious enough to warrant the change. Further, if they do want to minimise disruption during a transition, then a fixed 10 man size would be preferable in many ways.

Given past responses, players would react very negatively to such a change and I think there would be a drop in subs; only this time there'd be no large amount of incoming players to offset anyone who leaves.

It's very much a last resort for a very good reason. But I think the game would have to be in very dire straits for them to seriously consider this.

Originally Posted by Archidamos

Thats what i don't like with many that come into support of the 10 man. You don't focus on the problem but on the people.

The problem is simple.

Not enough players want to do 25s. There are a number of reasons why they don't want to do it, but ultimately I think the reason is 10s minimise the aspects of raiding they don't like. Guild and Raid Management. Logistics. Recruiting. Scheduling. Guild/Raid drama. And so on. 10s would also be a nice fit for a usual circle of friends within the game, and its easy to get PCs to power such content. For all the supposed feel 25s offer some people, most players just do not want to deal with its logistical issues.

Your concern is for the others not to have something more than you do and your eternal syndrome is for what you do not to be considered inferior.

And your concern is...the exact same. You don't want 10s to have more than 25s, and that's just as selfish as denying 10s any degree of viability by (for example) calling for the LK model to return.

One of the main reasons the LK model failed is because it denied smaller guilds equality and viability.

25s are dying for sure, but you can see that raiding is also diminishing as an hole.

Raiding has always been a minority interest in the game. Always. Players didn't want the hassle of organising, running , scheduling, dealing with guild drama and so on. Today? Today players have the option of LFR and I'd bet a LOT of players who used to raid now do LFR instead. The format a certain group of players don't see as real raiding.

What you want to say is that the players interested in taking part in organised raiding had decreased,and /or been split between various modes.

It's very much a last resort for a very good reason. But I think the game would have to be in very dire straits for them to seriously consider this.

Forum conversations are hard sometimes. See #1047 which is the short version of what I think about it and is pretty much in agreement with you. The other post that you quoted was mostly a thought experiment based on what might be a logical way forward if Blizzard decided to say, "OK. We'll do this."

The piece that you thought was such a terrible idea (the 15-man raid at the end of an expansion) should be viewed in the context that an announcement had been made months before and that people would be more or less aware of what was about to happen. It's probably idealistic to think that guilds would plan for such a thing in advance but truly, the idea was to signal that a new raiding reality was about to come to pass and if people hadn't gotten their act together it was time to do so instead of waiting until a new expansion and multiple raids dropped that would be more serious business.

Perhaps I didn't lay that out well enough. I'm still very much on the side that 10s/25s should stay as they are and that Blizzard should do everything they can think of to redeem the situation before pulling the trigger on anything radical. In that case, I would agree, things would be in dire straits. No argument whatsoever that it would be something of a trauma for many involved, would drive a large portion of the serious raiding population to consider leaving altogether and pretty much gut raiding as we know it. Whether anything good would rise out of that is an open question.

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Sturgeon's Law states that 90% of everything is crap. When posting try and be in the 10% once in a while. It makes it better for everyone.

They can plan....but its going to be problematic no matter how its done. 10/25 man raiding is going to be going on in some form until the next Xpac launches, but what you would also need would be a quiet period - such as a long period when raiding naturally dies down. The year for DS/LK would have been a good time - raiding dies down, and people and guilds start thinking about the next XPac.

No easy solutions the devs said EJL but diagnosed a problem... So you preaching leave things as they are, is not relevant. You re something like "last expansion's trend" a worn out fashion.

You mean the same way that some people were forced not to raid at all, or not to raid 25s at the begining of cataclysm?
You didnt seem so sensitive on those "issues" back then!
Spare me m8...

Originally Posted by Talen

I think that'd be a terrible idea. What you'd want would be some sort of pick up raid, something players could just try out but without pushing it into the status of a mainstream. What you'd get are the various guilds complaining about having to recruit or sit so many raiders.

You think wrong. Take any guild you want and check people flows over the period of a year. Nothing is static, everything evolves. Your argument is based on a static representation of a present were raiding is dying. A present that needs to become part of the past. A snapshot.

Originally Posted by Talen

I'd go further....the complete destruction of serious hardcore 25 man raiding might not be serious enough to warrant the change. Further, if they do want to minimise disruption during a transition, then a fixed 10 man size would be preferable in many ways.

Nooo! EJL tears for the few remaining 25s that got spared so far by the horrendus raiding model THAT HE SUPPORTS!!! What a hypocrite!
At least final sentence reminds people who you actually are and how clueless on top of everything!
So you suggest 10s to stay unchanged so the 15 (and not 10) spare people from a downsized 25 to remain with no raiding team whatsoever???
How deep your thought is!

Originally Posted by Talen

Given past responses, players would react very negatively to such a change and I think there would be a drop in subs; only this time there'd be no large amount of incoming players to offset anyone who leaves.

Lol so now you re resorting to "past responces", like the responce that your precious present raiding model received maybe, but never the less you have written 5000 posts in favor of it?

Originally Posted by Talen

It's very much a last resort for a very good reason. But I think the game would have to be in very dire straits for them to seriously consider this.

Hmm like experiencing a decline in people raiding of over 50% maybe? Like seeing subs going under 10 million AGAIN? You know raise dead doesnt work. The patient has to be alive in order to receive a successfull treatment!

Originally Posted by Talen

Not enough players want to do 25s. There are a number of reasons why they don't want to do it, but ultimately I think the reason is 10s minimise the aspects of raiding they don't like. Guild and Raid Management. Logistics. Recruiting. Scheduling. Guild/Raid drama. And so on. 10s would also be a nice fit for a usual circle of friends within the game, and its easy to get PCs to power such content. For all the supposed feel 25s offer some people, most players just do not want to deal with its logistical issues.

Your problem is simple. You re biased and clueless.
And you prefer to ignore statements like

However, calling 25-player raids less favorable in unfounded and an unfair assessment. Tons of players would love to do 25s, but the coordination and effort to do so is more difficult with very little additional reward. 10s aren't more popular because the entire community agreed they're more fun, it's just a simple case of effort versus reward.

Since they don't fit your agenta eh?
You remember were those words come from?The Blizzard devs! The ones that introduced this horrentus system your so fond about in the first place!

Originally Posted by Talen

And your concern is...the exact same. You don't want 10s to have more than 25s, and that's just as selfish as denying 10s any degree of viability by (for example) calling for the LK model to return.

No my concern is that i want raiding to thrive the way it was during WotLK. If you fail to see that i have nothing else to say to you on the matter.

Originally Posted by Talen

One of the main reasons the LK model failed is because it denied smaller guilds equality and viability.

LK model did not fail. Cataclysm model did, and still does as we speak. There is only a fake perseption of equality. Equality means same efford same reward. Here obviously this equation is distorded and you can see the results.

Originally Posted by Talen

Raiding has always been a minority interest in the game. Always. Players didn't want the hassle of organising, running , scheduling, dealing with guild drama and so on.

So because it has been a minority interest we can have 1 guild remain raiding if that means that your precious model survives EJL?
Do you know how much % of the actual community those 1,3 million people raiding were? Do you?
Your grudge is with the existance of guilds now as well?
Pressing auto buttons is the future? Cheers, you can squeeze them as much as you want but ill pass and i will continue claiming what i believe it is better.

Originally Posted by Talen

What you want to say is that the players interested in taking part in organised raiding had decreased,and /or been split between various modes.

EJL

No what you want to say is that you have no clue but in fancy words.
We have systemic problems. Solve them and then lets see what the people interest is about. Deal?
If you need help to spot the problems we can help you, just reach out...

Also i hope this will be received as "quotation" in the same manner that EJL's post was "quoting" mine...
I am genuinely surprised when i see that this particular guy is so well received by mods, even when he contradicts Blizzard Developers. Till end of september i thought it was because he was expresing the "politically correct" opinion. The one that was publicly shared by the devs (though they were horribly wrong).

The piece that you thought was such a terrible idea (the 15-man raid at the end of an expansion) should be viewed in the context that an announcement had been made months before and that people would be more or less aware of what was about to happen. It's probably idealistic to think that guilds would plan for such a thing in advance but truly, the idea was to signal that a new raiding reality was about to come to pass and if people hadn't gotten their act together it was time to do so instead of waiting until a new expansion and multiple raids dropped that would be more serious business.

The problem is that it WOULD be idealistic. Regardless of how much notice you give there would always be a sizeable fraction of guilds who weren't ready. Dropping a 15 man into the mix at the same time as 10s and 25s, however, is just begging for trouble. You would be expecting guilds to raid with multiple sizes. You'd be expecting them to resize mid-Xpac.

If we were to go this route, then the ideal time would be when x.0 launched, the pre-launch patch where it could be presented as an intro, kinda like how Theramore was previewed. Hopefully, it would be better and more interesting and better presented than that.

Whether anything good would rise out of that is an open question.

I think the answer, this late into the games life cycle, is no. A single fixed size raid of between 12 and 18 players would be near perfect. But hindsight is 20/20. While there would be some good to come form the change, the truth is I think it would simply be too disruptive to the game. It would need to be packaged as part of some radical overhaul. A relaunch of sorts. Short of anything like that, I don't see the long term cost being worth the gain; LOSING 25 Normal and Heroic woudl probably be less traumatic for the game.

No, I think the core issues began in TBC when Blizzard brought in two sizes of raid. Two incompatible raid sizes. Looking back, it seems as if they wanted the smaller guilds to be more casual, and the larger to reflect the more hardcore. But in TBC, that got wrecked because players ended up doing both. They designed LK that way...but still ended up with the smaller guilds being sidelined. In Cata, they finally got to a situation where both raid sizes are viable...but where the logistics and organisational issues, combined with sub loss due to a poor expansion, a need for increased PC specs and several other factors combined to make the larger size much less attractive, especially to the most important raiders in the game - the people who actually organise raids.

How to fix that? My answer is simple - you can't. For both sizes to be viable, BOTH must have EQUAL rewards. Theres some room to tinker around the edges with drop rates but as soon as you ensure one is seen as better for loot, people will flock to it. If both are equal, players will gravitate to the format that minimises the aspects that they don't like.

And players don't like managing raids.

Leaving the problem that if you can't give the format more difficult to organise raid better rewards to draw players to it, players will shy away from it precisely because it embodies aspects they don't like. Unlike others, I don't really see raid difficulty or this path of least resistance aspect as a major issue. From my pov, the issue is simple. I players want to raid, they will either create a raid and get players or they will join a raid based on factors that suit them - and those factors are (IMO) more likely to be aspects such as scheduling and how they interact with other raid members than whether format A is 3% more difficult than Format B.